DOCSLIB.ORG

The First Letter from the Field Jan Kubik, IREX Scholar, Poland

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The First Letter from the Field Jan Kubik, IREX Scholar, Poland The First Letter from the Field Jan Kubik, IREX Scholar, Poland Upon learning that the whole Kubik family was preparing to leave this August for a yearlong fieldwork in Poland, David Kideckel suggested that I should keep sending to the Review brief reports from the field. I love the idea (one more reason to be systematic) and promise to be a diligent correspondent. By the way of introduction, let me tell you a brief story of how the idea of this fieldwork came about and what preparations have been made so far. In July 1989 I returned to Poland after almost seven years of absence. Having just finished my doctoral dissertation at Columbia, entitled The Role of Symbols in the Legitimation of Power, Poland: 1976-1981, I was anxious to immerse myself in the country undergoing a dramatic change and find ideas for new research projects. A four week stay, in addition to the very emotional reunion with my family and friends, allowed me to collect a considerable amount of data on the recent (June 1989) semi-democratic elections and the emergence of the movement of Citizens' Committees. This preliminary study helped me later to developed a proposal for long- term fieldwork under the working tide of Political Discourse and Political Praxis of the Current Polish Democratization, which I hope to begin in September 1990, thanks to the IREX grant. The country I visited was still euphoric after the unexpectedly high electoral victory of Solidarity. I interviewed several Solidarity activists who had worked in the union's election campaign. All shared with me an amazing story of the frantic 57 days before the elections, during which the powerful communist party, although still in firm control of the media, practically disappeared from the public spaces. Instead, these spaces were filled with home-made and often amateurish visual propaganda by Solidarity. What really attracted my curiosity and later became a subject of two conference presentations (including my last AAA meeting paper) was the fact that during this campaign the communist party candidates pretended to be everything but communists. They were instead promoting themselves as patriots, champions of democracy and self-government, efficient and successful managers and, very often, unambiguous supporters of private enterprise (sic!). This strategy of mimicry, which served to hide the real political affiliations of the communist candidates, seems to have been the most conspicuous feature of the 1989 election campaign. 62 I also did some interviewing and background research on the Citizens' Committees. These spontaneously created bodies replaced in many places chapters of Solidarity as focal points of social activism. In Ustron (a site of my planned fieldwork in the Beskidy Mountains, southern Poland) I participated in a meeting of the local Citizens' Committee whose members were deliberating how to resurrect the local chapter of Solidarity. This exemplifies one of the fundamental dilemmas of the emerging civil society in Poland: Solidarity has been organized by people in the workplace; Citizens' Committees have been organized by people living in a certain area. The transition from the former organizing principle to the latter proves to be very difficult. I started also working on the theoretical and conceptual background of my upcoming fieldwork. I decided to concentrate on three themes. First, I have been reading literature on the transition to democracy from authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. I am studying, for example, O'Donnell's and Schmitter's Transitions from Authoritarian Rule and trying to figure out how to connect such analyses with my "anthropological/ethnographic" framework and problematic. Second, I have been developing an analytical framework I will need to study the change in the public discourse (symbols, works, styles of thinking, concepts, etc.). I intend to study the interaction of symbols and politics/power in a small community - thus far I concentrated on the national level. I would like to utilize some linguistic methods (although my competence here is limited). It seems to me, for example, that M. Moerman's Talking Culture: Ethnography and Conversation Analysis provides me with enough clues to develop an efficient mode of analysis of everyday verbal exchanges (beside I am a long-standing fan of Schutz and Luckman and The Structures of the Li fe-World will travel with us to Poland). Third, I have been looking at the more recent works dealing with the folk religion in Europe, such as, for example, a volume edited by Ellen Badone (in my preliminary research in Ustron I detected a growing tension between Protestants and Catholics; the former voted for Solidarity candidates, the latter had their own representatives). Another very useful aspect of my trip to Poland was an opportunity to catch up with the most recent publications on a variety of topics. Here I would like to share with you brief bibliographic information about several works recendy published in Poland in the fields of ethnography and sociology. Arkady, a Warsaw publishing house, put out Sztuka Ludowa w Polsce (Folk Art in Poland) by Ewa Frys-Pietraszkowa, Anna Kunczynska-Iracka and Marian Pokropek (1988). This carefully edited work contains 13 synthetic studies (emphasizing history) on such topics as 63 architecture, pottery, cloth, painting, etc; an extensive bibliography; index of geographic locations; index of names; index of terms and iconographic motifs; and 453 black-and-white and color pictures. Artia (a Czechoslovak publisher) and PA Interpress (a Polish house) brought out Tradycje Tworczosci Ludowej, Ludowa Kultura Materialna w Czechach i na Morawach (Traditions of Folk Arts and Crafts. Folk Material Culture in Bohemia and Moravia) by Alena Vondruskova and Vlastimil Vondruska. A handsome volume (many beautiful black-and-white and color pictures), though not as carefully edited as the previous one (no indexes or bibliography), contains a lot of useful information about the material culture of the two Czechoslovak lands. The work I found particularly interesting is Cyganie w Polsce, Dzieje i Obycaje. (Gypsies in Poland. History and Customs) by Jerzy Ficowski (known to the English-speaking public for his superb editorial work on the English version of Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz. with Selected Prose). It is a carefully researched and concisely written essay presenting a story of Gypsies in Poland (note: not Polish Gypsies), accompanied by 207 black-and-white and color pictures. It begins with an examination of the first written sources documenting the Gypsy presence in Europe and on Polish territories. A brief history of the Gypsies in Poland until 1939 is followed by a detailed description of their tragic fate under the Nazis. Then, the very difficult relationship between Gypsies and both the communist authorities ("productivizing" actions) and ethnic Poles (e.g., an attempted pogrom in Konin in 1981) is scrutinized. The last and the largest part of the essay is devoted to a presentation and analysis of old and modern Gypsy folklore. I would also like to bring to your attention a serial publication of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences entitled Sisyphus, Sociological Studies. Some of you may know Volume III: Crises and Conflicts, The Case of Poland 1980-81, one of the best sources of primary materials (e.g., fragments of workers' memoirs) and original studies by Polish sociologists dealing with the Polish "self-acting" revolution of 1980-81. By now six volumes are available. Volume IV, for example, entitled Poland in the 1980s. Reassessment of Crises and Conflicts, contains such studies as W. Morawski's "Dilemmuas of the institutional change in Contemporary Poland," Stefan Nowak's "The attitudes, values, and aspirations of Polish society," J. Wasilewski's "Social processes of regional power elite recruitment," or J. Koralewicz's and E. Wnuk-Lipinski's "Vision of society, differentiations and inequalities in the collective 64 consciousness." Sisyphus is an invaluable source of first-rate, original sociological studies, although the quality of English translations is very uneven. I know that the future of this publication is endangered by the lack of funds and our Polish colleagues appeal for help, for example in the form of subscriptions (if you have questions concerning this issue or you need more information please, call or write me). If you have any comments, criticisms, useful hints, bibliographic suggestions etc., concerning my fieldwork or the works I briefly reviewed, please call me at (216) 263-2219[(919) 299-0653 after May 31)] or write to: Jan Kubik, c/o Ruth Shope, 516 Willowbrook Dr., Greensboro, NC 27403. 65 .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Tropy Akowskie W Poezji Jerzego Ficowskiego
    Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne Seria Literacka 20 (40) Jerzy Kandziora Tropy akowskie w poezji Jerzego Ficowskiego Pamięci Profesor Aliny Brodzkiej-Wald śledząc nurty narracji historycznej w poezji Jerzego Ficowskie- go, odnajdujemy wiele wierszy związanych z doświadczeniem jego walki w szeregach Armii Krajowej i udziału w powstaniu warszawskim. Warto zauważyć, że o ile dominujący w obrę- bie tej narracji temat zagłady żydów stanowił dla Ficowskiego niezmienne i przez wiele lat istniejące wyzwanie, aby odnaleźć sposób poe tyckiego wysłowienia zbrodni (co ostatecznie stało się w cyklu Odczytanie popiołów z 1979 r.), o tyle temat akowski został w pewien sposób odsunięty na dłuższy czas poza horyzont poe tycki autora. Dotykający tych spraw debiut Ołowiani żołnierze (1948) prześlizgnął się, rzec można, ponad historią akowską i po- wstańczą, gdzie indziej, poza owymi wątkami, osadzając znaki poetyckiej oryginalności, znamionującej już wówczas twórczość Ficowskiego. Odpowiedź na pytanie, dlaczego tak się stało, nie jest jed- noznaczna. Z różnych rozproszonych refleksji poety można odtworzyć kilka przyczyn. Powstanie warszawskie dotknęło Ficowskiego najbardziej bezpośrednio i traumatycznie. Wal- czył na Mokotowie, i tu był świadkiem śmierci swoich kolegów z oddziału. Poproszony w 1994 r. o komentarz do dziennika Bar- bary Kaczyńskiej-Januszkiewicz, która jako trzynastolatka za- pisywała wydarzenia powstania dziejące się od 1 sierpnia 1944 r. w okolicach jej domu przy ulicy Ursynowskiej 26, w tym także odnotowała pojawienie się dziewiętnastoletniego strzelca „Wra- ka”, który „poszedł zamówić trumny”, Ficowski stwierdza m.in.: „Niewiele pamiętam, walczyłem z pamięcią, bo zbyt bo- lała. [...] Wdzięczny jestem 13-letniej Basi, że utrwaliła strzępki pamięci o zapomnianym prawie przeze mnie strzelcu «Wraku», którym wówczas byłem, o moich poległych kolegach”1.
    [Show full text]
  • Fiscal Year 2016 NEA Literature Translation Fellowship Recipients
    Fiscal Year 2016 NEA Literature Translation Fellowship Recipients Some details of the projects listed are subject to change, contingent upon prior NEA approval. For the most up to date project information, please use the NEA's online grant search system. See the following pages for more information on the projects and translators. Aron R. Aji, Iowa City, IA . Philip Boehm, St. Louis, MO . Maia Evrona, Framingham, MA . Jeffrey Friedman, West Lebanon, NH . María José Gimenez, Easthampton, MA . Ani Gjika, Framingham, MA . Jennifer Grotz, Rochester, NY . Kathleen Heil, Fayetteville, AR . Jesse Lee Kercheval, Madison, WI . Michelle Har Kim, Alhambra, CA . Michael Leong, Albany, NY . Michael F. Moore, Long Island City, NY . Benjamin Paloff, Ann Arbor, MI . Kit Schluter, Oakland, CA . William Schutt, Baltimore, MD . K. E. Semmel, Milwaukee, WI . Donna Stonecipher, Seattle, WA . Jeremy Tiang, Brooklyn, NY . Will Vanderhyden, Oakland, CA . Matvei Yankelevich, Brooklyn, NY Aron R. Aji (in collaboration with David Gramling), Iowa City, IA ($12,500) To support the translation from the Turkish of My Heart's East, a collection of poems by Murathan Mungan. A prolific author of nearly 60 works of poetry, fiction, drama, and non-fiction, Mungan (b. 1955) is best known as one of Turkey's foremost lyric poets. My Heart's East showcases his aesthetic breadth and sociopolitical engagement. Written mostly in the 1980s and '90s, the poems chronicle the longstanding Turkish-Kurdish conflict that reached unprecedented levels of violence during that period, resulting in at least 40,000 deaths. This translation will be the first time a book-length collection of his poetry appears in English.
    [Show full text]
  • Feature Papusza N Recent Decades, New Relations Between Her Life — the Events Before the Early 1950S in the Majority Population and Roma Have Particular
    4 feature PAPUSZA n recent decades, new relations between her life — the events before the early 1950s in the majority population and Roma have particular. been developing in Poland. This has part- Born around 1910 in Lublin, she was de- ly been a result of normal assimilation clared to be fated to bring either pride or processes, but there has also been a shrink- shame to her family. The next scene takes ing distance between Roma and non-Roma, the viewer to a prison somewhere in Poland as well as a growing mobilization and sense where Papusza is serving a sentence for re- of agency within Roma society. The Roma peated theft (due to her husband’s love of sto- people have entered the spheres of media, len rather than bought poultry); she is put in education, and popular culture on an unprec- a ministerial car and taken straight to the pre- edented scale.1 The filmPapusza can be seen miere of a bombastic piece of music to which as a result of these processes. her poems were set. She and her husband are Papusza was first screened in autumn 2013. seated along ministers, Party fat cats, and the The film offers interpretations of several phe- cream of the Polish cultural establishment. nomena: the fate of the Roma community in Afterwards, she and her husband Dionizy, Poland from the interwar period to the 1970s; 24 years her senior, return to their miserable the personal fate of the renowned Romani “Papusza” (Bronisława Wajs). quarters in Gorzów Wielkopolski in western poet “Papusza”2 (Bronisława Wajs); and the Poland, where they have been living since poet’s relationship with her husband, Dionizy their tabor stopped traveling in 1954.
    [Show full text]
  • Evoking a Displaced Homeland: the 'Poetic Memoir' of Andrzej Chciuk
    Evoking a Displaced Homeland: the ‘Poetic Memoir’ of Andrzej Chciuk Mary Besemeres Abstract This article looks at some poems by Polish Australian writer Andrzej Chciuk (1920-1978). Chciuk migrated to Australia from France in 1951, having escaped Nazi-occupied Poland as a twenty-year-old in 1940. In Australia he worked as a schoolteacher in Melbourne while continuing to write poetry and fiction in Polish. His work was published in prestigious Polish emigré outlets like the Paris-based journal Kultura and in Australia with sponsorship from the Polish migrant community; to date no English translations of it have appeared. My article focuses on a sequence of poems in his 1961 Pamiętnik poetycki (Poetic Memoir) called ‘Tamta Ziemia’ (That Other Land), about the cities and towns of Chciuk’s childhood: Lwów, Borysław and his hometown of Drohobycz. When the author was growing up these towns were in eastern Poland; by the time of his writing, in the 1950s, however, they had become part of Soviet Ukraine, and were thus doubly removed from his life in Australia. He wrote as a displaced person whose childhood home had itself been displaced. Hence the powerful note of longing that pervades his ‘poetic memoir’. Through a reading of some passages in my English translation, I hope to convey something of Chciuk’s lively poetic voice, and to show that he deserves admission to discussions of twentieth-century transnational Australian literature. * * * * * Translingual writers from Ha Jin to Jhumpa Lahiri are increasingly at the forefront of contemporary literature in English, but writers in Anglophone countries working in languages other than English have tended to remain obscure, as Sonia Mycak1 and Michael Jacklin2 have shown in the Australian context.
    [Show full text]
  • “I Think That Poets ARTISTS… ALL BROADLY, MORE AND, POETS THAT THINK "I And, More Broadly, All Artists Have Some Certain Cognitive Impatience in Them”
    Czytanie Literatury https://doi.org/10.18778/2299-7458.09.19 Łódzkie Studia Literaturoznawcze 9/2020 ISSN 2299–7458 e-ISSN 2449–8386 357 “I think that poets "I THINK THAT POETS AND, MORE BROADLY, ALL ARTISTS… and, more broadly, all artists have some certain cognitive impatience in them” An Interview with Professor Jerzy Kandziora about Stanisław Barańczak, Conducted by Karolina Król SUMMARY The interview covers the subject of Stanisław Barańczak and his works. Pondering on the way the poet pictures the existence of God in his poems is an important part of the text. Another crucial subject is the way Barańczak deals with his illness and portrays it in his poetic works. In the interview Jerzy Kandziora – an exquisite reasercher of the poetry written by Barańczak and Jerzy Ficowski − mentions his private relationship with both Barańczak and his wife. Keywords Stanisław Barańczak, poetry, illness, God Karolina Król: How did you meet Professor Barańczak? During the di- scussion panel devoted to this poet, you mentioned that initially your re- lationship was established on official university grounds. When did this relationship shift to the personal level? © by the author, licensee Łódź University – Łódź University Press, Łódź, Poland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 Jerzy Kandziora: I started my studies in 1973. Stanisław Barańczak and his wife Anna were then employed as assistant lecturers at the Polish Phi- lology in Poznań. At the end of 1973, Barańczak received his doctorate on the basis of his doctoral dissertation on Miron Białoszewski.
    [Show full text]
  • Songs from the Ashes: an Examination of Three Holocaust-Themed Song Cycles by Lori Laitman" (2007)
    UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations 1-1-2007 Songs from the ashes: An examination of three Holocaust- themed song cycles by Lori Laitman Serdar Ilban University of Nevada, Las Vegas Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/rtds Repository Citation Ilban, Serdar, "Songs from the ashes: An examination of three Holocaust-themed song cycles by Lori Laitman" (2007). UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations. 2790. http://dx.doi.org/10.25669/mots-mvtn This Dissertation is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by Digital Scholarship@UNLV with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Dissertation in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. This Dissertation has been accepted for inclusion in UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Scholarship@UNLV. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SONGS FROM THE ASHES: AN EXAMINATION OF THREE HOLOCAUST-THEMED SONG CYCLES BY LORI LAITMAN by Serdar Ilban Bachelor of Music University of Istanbul 1992 Master of Music The Boston Conservatory 1995 A doctoral document submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Performance Department of Music College of Fine Arts Graduate College University of Nevada, Las Vegas May 2008 UMI Number: 3319130 Copyright 2008 by Ilban, Serdar All rights reserved.
    [Show full text]
  • Poetry and the Ritual: Poems for Bolesław Bierut's 60Th Birthday
    Teksty Drugie 2016, 2, s. 117-136 Special Issue – English Edition Poetry and the Ritual: Poems for Bolesław Bierut's 60th Birthday Michał Głowiński http://rcin.org.pl INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXTS OF POLISH LITERARY HISTORY M I C H A ł G łO W I ń S K I POETRY AND THE RITUAL … 117 Michał Głowiński Poetry and the Ritual: Poems for Bolesław Bierut’s 60th Birthday DOI: 10.18318/td.2016.en.2.9 istinctions between literary genres did not play Michał Głowiński Da major role in the theory of social realism, but of- (b. 1934) – Professor ficial expectations with regard to literature had to at least Emeritus at the Institute of Literary take into account the rudimentary genealogical proper- Research of the ties of literary writing. Novels and plays, which by no Polish Academy of means could have been written within a day, served dif- Sciences, literary ferent purposes than poetry. Narratives were supposed theorist and historian to illustrate specific theses spawned by party propaganda of Polish literature. A collection of his which promoted specific attitudes, dictated the correct works Totalitarian vision of the world, and thus set the direction of history, Speech was creating heroes of socialist work and conveying “moral” published in 2014, teachings (such as, “Stay vigilant!”). However, this was ac- and a volume of his complished with a certain degree of delay – the famous essays Mity przebrane will soon appear in an novel on the foulness of the nationalist right-wing ten- English translation. dencies, for example, was created several years after the healthy forces among the Polish Communists managed to discover and eradicate this “foulness” with the broth- erly support of their Soviet friends.
    [Show full text]
  • Who Owns Bruno Schulz? the Changing Postwar Fortunes of Works of Art by Jewish Artists Murdered in Nazi-Occupied Poland1
    Who Owns Bruno Schulz? The Changing Postwar Fortunes of Works of Art by Jewish Artists Murdered in Nazi-Occupied Poland1 by Nawojka Cieślińska-Lobkowicz The documentation of works of art and culture destroyed and looted in German-occupied Poland (1939-1945), as well as the active search for these works abroad and the restitution of recovered objects have ranked among the key priorities of the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage since the early 1990s. In regard to questions of restitution, the Ministry of Culture is in constant competition with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: every recovered item is widely presented as a great victory for justice, while at the same time it is presented as a victory for the ministry involved. However, what is never mentioned is the fact that after the war, national institutions and private individuals often became the new owners of objects that had once belonged to private people or organizations persecuted by the Nazis. In the majority of cases, this affected Jewish individuals, Jewish communities and Jewish institutions. This attitude of silence contradicts the 1998 Washington Conference Principles, confirmed by the Terezín Declaration in 2009. It prevails despite the fact that Poland has signed both documents and benefits from them in cases of foreign restitutions.2 This double standard was blatantly evident during the international conference organized in November 2014 in Kraków entitled “Looted/Recovered. Cultural Goods - the Case of Poland”.3 The conference took place under the auspices and presence of the then Minister of Culture. The necessity for provenance research, supervision of the art market, and the implementation of restitution procedures were underlined within the context of the Polish authorities’ efforts to recover looted art taken out of the occupied country.
    [Show full text]
  • Fiscal Year 2016 NEA Literature Translation Fellowship Recipients
    Fiscal Year 2016 NEA Literature Translation Fellowship Recipients Some details of the projects listed are subject to change, contingent upon prior NEA approval. For the most up to date project information, please use the NEA's online grant search system. Click on the recipient's name for information on the project. Aron R. Aji, Iowa City, IA . Philip Boehm, St. Louis, MO . Maia Evrona, Framingham, MA . Jeffrey Friedman, West Lebanon, NH . María José Gimenez, Easthampton, MA . Ani Gjika, Framingham, MA . Jennifer Grotz, Rochester, NY . Kathleen Heil, Fayetteville, AR . Jesse Lee Kercheval, Madison, WI . Michelle Har Kim, Alhambra, CA . Michael Leong, Albany, NY . Michael F. Moore, Long Island City, NY . Benjamin Paloff, Ann Arbor, MI . Kit Schluter, Oakland, CA . William Schutt, Baltimore, MD . K. E. Semmel, Milwaukee, WI . Donna Stonecipher, Seattle, WA . Jeremy Tiang, Brooklyn, NY . Will Vanderhyden, Oakland, CA . Matvei Yankelevich, Brooklyn, NY Aron R. Aji (in collaboration with David Gramling), Iowa City, IA ($12,500) To support the translation from the Turkish of My Heart's East, a collection of poems by Murathan Mungan. A prolific author of nearly 60 works of poetry, fiction, drama, and non-fiction, Mungan (b. 1955) is best known as one of Turkey's foremost lyric poets. My Heart's East showcases his aesthetic breadth and sociopolitical engagement. Written mostly in the 1980s and '90s, the poems chronicle the longstanding Turkish-Kurdish conflict that reached unprecedented levels of violence during that period, resulting in at least 40,000 deaths. This translation will be the first time a book-length collection of his poetry appears in English.
    [Show full text]
  • Itzhak Katzenelson's Dos Lid Fun Oysgehargetn Yidishn Folk
    SCRIPTA JUDAICA CRACOVIENSIA Vol. 15 (2017) pp. 73–81 doi:10.4467/20843925SJ.17.005.8174 www.ejournals.eu/Scripta-Judaica-Cracoviensia ITZHAK KATZENELSON’S DOS LID FUN OYSGEHARGETN YIDISHN FOLK1 IN TRANSLATION: THE FIRST FOUR DECADES Andrzej Pawelec, Magdalena Sitarz (Jagiellonian University in Kraków) e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] Key words: Itzhak Katzenelson, Dos lid fun oysgehargetn yidishn folk, Ghetto Fighters’ House, Miriam Novitch, Hermann Adler, Jerzy Ficowski Abstract: In this article we sketch the history of Katzenelson’s lament Dos lid fun oysgehargetn yidishn folk in translation, from the publication of the Yiddish original in 1945 to the fall of the Berlin Wall. We first present Katzenelson’s ‘testament’—a letter to his relatives Berl Katznelson and Yitzhak Tabenkin, important Labour politicians in Eretz Israel—which expresses the poet’s hopes concerning the publication and translation of the Lament after the war. Subsequently, we discuss the translations of the poem, highlighting the involvement of the Ghetto Fighters’ House. Itzhak Katzenelson’s Lament occupies a unique position in world literature. As point- ed out by Primo Levi (1995 [1963]: 5) in his introduction to the first Italian translation of Dos lid: Davanti al «cantare» di Yitzhak Katzenelson ogni lettore non può che arrestarsi turbato e rev- erente. Non è paragonabile ad alcun’altra opera nella storia di tutte le letterature: è la voce di un morituro, uno fra centinaia di migliaia di morituri, atrocemente consapevole del suo destino singolo e del destino del suo popolo. [When confronted with Katzenelson’s ‘singing’, the reader cannot but feel shaken and rev- erent.
    [Show full text]
  • Memory of the Nazi Camps in Poland, 1944-1950
    Arrested Mourning WARSAW STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY HISTORY Edited by Dariusz Stola / Machteld Venken VOLUME 2 Zofia Wóycicka Arrested Mourning Memory of the Nazi Camps in Poland, 1944-1950 Translated by Jasper Tilbury Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. This publication is funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Poland. Editorial assistance by Jessica Taylor-Kucia. Cover image: A Red Army soldier liberating a camp prisoner (Za Wolność i Lud, 1-15 Apr. 1950). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wóycicka, Zofia, author. [Przerwana żałoba. English] Arrested mourning : memory of the Nazi camps in Poland, 1944-1950 / Zofia Wóycicka. pages cm. -- (Warsaw studies in contemporary history; volume 2) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-3-631-63642-8 1. Collective memory--Poland. 2. World War, 1939-1945--Prisoners and prisons, German. 3. World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camps--Poland. I. Title. HM1027.P7W6813 2013 940.54'7243--dc23 2013037453 ISSN 2195-1187 ISBN 978-3-631-63642-8 (Print) E-ISBN 978-3-653-03883-5 (E-Book) DOI 10.3726/978-3-653-03883-5 Open Access: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 unported license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ © Zofia Wóycicka, 2013 Peter Lang – Frankfurt am Main · Bern · Bruxelles · New York · Oxford · Warszawa · Wien This book is part of the Peter Lang Edition list and was peer reviewed prior to publication.
    [Show full text]
  • The Works of Marc Chagall in Polish Poetry (From the 1950S to the 1980S)
    Porównania 1 (28), 2021 DOI: 10.14746/por.2021.1.4 Katarzyna Szewczyk-Haake Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu The Works of Marc Chagall in Polish Poetry (from the 1950s to the 1980s) It must be said that a substantial number of Polish authors in the period con- sidered here turned their attention to Marc Chagall’s paintings and created some important lyrical texts. The prepotent inspiration gained by several Polish post-war poets from Chagall’s art might be quite easily explained by a few factors. The most general one, the importance of which is not limited to the realm of the local (here: Polish) sensibilities, is the painter’s characteristic visual language, close to fairy tale and myth and therefore very inspiring for the poets, regardless of the tradition they belong to. Indeed, it seems that Chagall’s paintings, sometimes referred to metaphorically as “poetry”1 (in this context understood as a dream, fantasy and a certain kind of beauty unrelated to the experience of reality) have a quality to which the poets are secretly attached and which makes it an ideal subject for poetical interplays. The second one is certainly Chagall’s biography and life-long interest in places and people filling his childhood spent in Vitebsk—a variety of subjects meaningful for writers coming from the same part of the world, also (or maybe: especially) in completely different historical circumstances. Thirdly, the painter’s popularity among the Polish poets was stimulated by a dramatical historical context for interpreting his works, a context especially important in Central Europe, which was a scene for tragic historical events.
    [Show full text]